


Coffee and Dreams

by goshawk



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-01
Updated: 2010-07-01
Packaged: 2017-10-10 08:22:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/97634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goshawk/pseuds/goshawk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Weir discussing why she wants to go to Atlantis over late-night coffee with Jack O'Neill.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coffee and Dreams

Elizabeth leaned back from the table and rubbed her eyes wearily. The excitement hadn't gone away, that feeling of impossible glee, like getting away with staying up all night for the first time, but the amount of sheer _work_ that was involved in launching the Atlantis Expedition (not a hypothetical anymore!) was…daunting. She knew the feeling, had faced the start of peace treaties between enemies with decades or centuries of animosity behind them with the same sense that she was leaning on a mountain and expecting it to budge, and she knew that it was an illusion, but still. It didn't make the beginning any less difficult.

"Knock, knock," O'Neill leaned around the corner. "Want some coffee?" He set a cup of steaming mess-hall coffee in front her without waiting for a response and sprawled across the other chair in the room as she blinked in tired incomprehension.

Elizabeth shook herself back to alertness and smiled with genuine gratitude. "Thank you," she murmured, blowing across it and taking a sip. It was just how she liked it, which meant he'd asked whoever was on kitchen this late. She heaved a deep sigh of appreciation. One of the benefits of working with geniuses on government dime was being able to order decent coffee as a vital resource. Though perhaps she should start weaning herself off it now…it would be too much to hope for a thriving coffee plantation in the Pegasus Galaxy.

O'Neill – Jack, he'd insisted she call him Jack if they weren't in public, and she suspected he would do away with that as well but for bruised sensibilities – was watching her with a very knowing expression on his face. She raised her eyebrows at him, inviting comment.

"So," he said, waving his free hand at her table piled with personnel files and supply lists and everything else to do with taking a couple hundred people to a different galaxy. "I get the 'cool factor' to this whole thing, but why do _you_ want to go?"

"Wow," Elizabeth let out a breath. "That's a…an involved question."

"Well, you know you could end up stuck there…forever," Jack waved his coffee cup vaguely. "And I know you have a family and a home and a dog, and whatnot, unlike some of these guys, so…"

She nodded, acknowledging the point. More than anything, the thought of breaking the news of another "overseas" contract to Simon was the part of this that really made her stop and think, hard, about the potential consequences. "I can't pretend I don't think about that," she murmured, taking another sip of coffee. "I mean, it's not that I'm looking forward to being potentially stuck in the Pegasus Galaxy for the rest of my life. But I didn't really want to be in command of some science fictional military venture either, and look at how that turned out."

Jack sipped his coffee and nodded back at her, making a "yes, and?" motion with his hand. It never ceased to amaze her how expressive the General could be while using as few actual words as possible. She leaned forward a bit, breaking eye contact and staring into her coffee cup.

"When I was brought onboard the Stargate program, it was because the Vice President thought I would make a good pawn to his political ambitions, and because the President thought my differences with the military would stand the program in good stead if we needed to go public," Elizabeth commented, remembering her frustration and bewilderment at the incredible hostility she'd faced when she first arrived at SGC and grimacing. "I didn't have any vested interest in space, in the Stargate, in some galactic war…all I ever wanted from my life was to solidify a lasting non-proliferation treaty and maybe a nuclear de-armament treaty or three. I wanted to _stop_ wars, not get involved in them."

"I remember," Jack said drily, and she frowned at him, holding herself back from leaping into the fray. Just because that had been an impossible option with Anubis did not mean it wasn't the better option for Earth.

"Yes, but my point is, you can't – I couldn't – get involved in this program and then go back to watching Pakistani generals scream at Indian government officials over a tiny piece of this one little planet. Not without losing patience, not when I know everything else that's out there," she sighed. "I'm happy to have given over command of SGC. For the time being, it's a military venture and I don't think a peacenik former war-protester is the best choice there," she gave him a half smile at her own expense and he smirked ever so slightly.

"The Lost City of Atlantis…" Elizabeth trailed off and stared at her coffee again. "It's a dream. It's something that has nothing to do with war, or with petty internal politics, or anything else I used to be so invested in. And yet I believe that if we go there, we could find things – technologies, knowledge, ideas – that could make Earth better. Maybe make it a place where no one has to die over a square patch of dirt, or drink contaminated water, or die of AIDS, ever again. And with all of that potential, all the possibilities, after all these months of burying myself in everything Atlantis, I just…how could I stay behind? How could I _not_ go?"

She finished speaking softly, mostly to herself, and suddenly looked up at General O'Neill. Only long experience fought the flush back from her cheeks. "I'm sorry, General," she flashed a professional smile. "I suppose I'm pretty tired."

"Jack," he reminded her.

"Jack," she corrected herself, still embarrassed at the way she'd let herself maunder on like some kind of ivory-tower academic, like exactly the kind of weak-minded civilian dreamer the military always seemed to assume she was and so disdain.

"Well," Jack nodded his head and drank the remainder of his coffee at a gulp. "Seems like a good enough reason to me. I mean, I think you're crazy," he pinned her with a look, then ran his hand through his hair. "But then, I guess that makes you just like everybody else around here. Always fit in, that's what I always say," he said, in tones that suggested he never said that at all. "Anyways, it's late, and since your scientist and my scientist apparently almost fried my new favourite pilot's brain on that Chair, I'm probably staying the night."

"They – I'll have to talk to Rodney about that," Elizabeth grimaced. "It's one thing to pester Carson for bits and snips of the outpost's database, but he knows better than to put someone in the Chair that long. He is okay, though, the pilot?" She certainly hoped so. She had plans for Major Sheppard, though he didn't yet know it.

"Yeah, Beckett said he would be fine after some rest in the infirmary and an impressive amount of food," Jack said airily. "I'm more concerned about resting _myself_ right now. Are there beds somewhere, or does everyone just collapse where they are and drool on the paperwork around here?"

"Oh! Of course, you must be exhausted," Elizabeth pushed herself to her feet, swayed a bit and drained her coffee at a go. "I think you should be able to get a room entirely to yourself, and we have some overnight bags – toothbrushes and things – for this kind of thing. I'll show you," she smiled a bit and began walking toward the dorms. The military people had tried to call them barracks, but a critical load of former university-denizen geniuses had achieved the upper hand in the naming battle.

"…Pilots pass out from using the Chair a lot, then?" Jack fell in beside her, stepping a little slower for her shorter stride.

She grinned. "No, this is a first. But we do get some pretty bad weather out here, and we've had people stuck for a few days. At least you have clearance to be down here," she commented, opening a storage locker and handing him a small bag of disposable toiletries, because although something in her environmentalist heart cringed at the waste every time, she couldn't convince the government to get the earth-friendly stuff. "The last couple times, the pilot and another technician had to stay in the topside emergency station for two days in a howling blizzard. They weren't very happy about it, either. Here you go," she stopped and opened a door into a vacant, utilitarian room with two sets of empty bunk-beds in it, bedding folded neatly atop each.

"Oh good, bunk beds," Jack groused. "Dibs top."

Elizabeth giggled, and covered her mouth immediately, mortified. Jack shot a look at her, and shook his head. "Tell you what, Dr Weir – go to bed. You're making me tired just looking at you."

"You're right. Thank you," she held his eyes and said it with more intensity than the comment deserved. He waved her off and went back to contemplating the beds, which, she realised as the door swung shut and she started back to her office, were all about a foot too short for him. She smothered another giggle, and changed direction. It was definitely time for bed. Elizabeth suspected she would need all her wits to confront Major Sheppard about joining the expedition in the morning.


End file.
